Legislators Fiddle While Earth Warms

Crazy weather patterns have appeared recently in the form of humidity in usually foggy San Francisco, California-like weather in Washington, D.C., torrential downpours and massive flooding in Britain and torrid temperatures in the Mediterranean. These and other episodes such as Hurricane Katrina add more evidence to the scientific studies that say we are at the outset of an era of blowback, environmentally speaking. Human activities have pumped massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the bill has come due.

Governments around the world are trying to figure the way forward, with the European Union leading the way. Recently, the EU agreed to cut its carbon emissions by 20 percent, and to make renewable energy sources 20 percent of its energy mix by 2020. California’s government also passed landmark legislation in 2006 to decrease carbon emissions, though troubling signs of retrenchment have emerged during the implementation.

But that was nothing compared to the outright foolishness that has emerged in Sacramento. Assembly members voted to slash $1.26 billion from the public transit budget and to permanently chop the largest state fund for public transit in half — and the Senate, mired in a budget impasse, shows no inclination to restore the funding. According to Steve Blackledge of California PIRG, this will likely result in even more cuts to service, delays in new lines and rider fare increases and what makes this even harder to swallow is that the Assembly simultaneously voted for new tax breaks for oil companies and airlines.

If we are to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions that are contributing massively to global warming, getting more people out of our cars and riding public transit is certainly part of the solution. State government should be putting more funding into public transit, not slashing its funding. Given the realities of global warming, cutting public transit is akin to a self-inflicted wound.

Not only is public transit in California and the United States lagging, so is the rest of our CO2-belching transportation infrastructure. For example, American autos have engines that are nearly double the average size in Germany, Britain or France. While Europe and Japan have raised their fuel standards to 45 miles per gallon, bipartisan policy in the United States has allowed Detroit to cruise along with fuel standards of 27.5 mpg for cars and

22 mpg for SUVs and trucks, even allowing outrageous tax deductions for buyers of gas-guzzling SUVs.

Says Diana Farrell of the McKinsey Institute, a highly regarded global business consultancy, “To travel 1 mile in the United States requires 37 percent more fuel than to travel 1 mile in Europe or Japan. And with current use, that gap will increase to 42 percent by 2020.”

While the California Legislature, like the Bush administration, dithers, Europe is spearheading other transportation innovations. Congestion zones requiring motorists to pay a toll to enter city centers have been implemented to reduce carbon-belching traffic jams. In London’s congestion zone, traffic has declined more than 20 percent and clogged streets have opened up. About 100,000 people pay $8 each day via cell phone, the Internet or at retail shops across the city. The tolls raise approximately $200 million per year, most of it plowed back into public transport, which more people now are happy to ride.

The jewel in the European transportation system is their trains, whether between cities or within cities. Famous for their efficiency and speed, Europe’s trains run on time, they’re comfortable and they’re affordable.

Europe has shown that high-speed trains can compete with air travel not only in terms of travel time, but also impact on the environment. Trains emit an estimated 66 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger compared to 187 pounds per passenger for air travel, a difference of more than 6 tons per 100 passengers.

The EU has earmarked $27.5 billion to finance trans-European networks, even as the California Assembly votes to cut the mass transit budget, and U.S.

As a result of a well-planned and well-funded transportation infrastructure, nearly 6 of 10 Europeans take less than 20 minutes to get to work. No wonder BusinessWeek has written that Europe is “the best buffered from (oil) price increases” that we inevitably face, as surely as melting glaciers will cause the sea to rise.

The recent action by the California Assembly is akin to sticking its head in the sand. Our state legislators not only should restore the funding for public transit, they should look for ways to massively invest in the state’s transportation infrastructure with a goal of reducing greenhouse gases. Now is a time for leadership, not the same old politics.

A provocative, remedy-based perspective on the joint complexities of economic stability and ever expanding technology.–Kirkus Reviews

“Hill hits Silicon Valley darlings like Uber and Airbnb alongside the former online black market Silk Road, right-to-work laws, and factory robots all under the umbrella of “naked capitalism.” He explains how the rise of the “1099 workforce” is not limited to Silicon Valley; more and more traditional jobs in fields like manufacturing are turning to contractors to perform the same tasks full-time employees used to do. In addition to costing workers in benefits and safety nets, misclassifying workers as contractors costs federal and state governments billions of dollars annually in lost tax revenue.” ―Washington Monthly

“For anyone driven crazy by the faux warm and fuzzy PR of the so-called sharing economy Steven Hill’s Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers should be required reading… Hill is an extremely well-informed skeptic who presents a satisfyingly blistering critique of high tech’s disingenuous equating of sharing with profiteering…Hill includes two chapters listing potential solutions for the crises facing U.S. workers…Hill stresses the need for movement organizing to create a safety net strong enough to save the millions of workers currently being shafted in venture capital’s brave new world.” ―Counterpunch

“A growing underclass scrambling to make ends meet at the whim of increasingly picky and erratic employers, that number could balloon to 65 million within 10 years, or about half of the domestic workforce, warns Steven Hill in his troubling new book, Raw Deal. This brand of worker abuse cuts across industries and company size. Hill calls out Uber, AirBnb, Merck, Nissan, and dozens of others. Hill does a nice job of putting it in starker, easier-to-understand ways.” ―Washington Independent Review of Books

“Steven Hill’s book Raw Deal is a red-faced, steam-out-the-ears indictment of sharing apps. Yet Hill offers a pragmatic, almost post-ideological solution: “individual security accounts” for workers. Companies that use independent contractors, or offer scant benefits for employees, would have to add on a certain percentage of their pay as a contribution to those accounts, which would cover health care, unemployment insurance, and more. There’d be a mechanism ― and a requirement ― for companies to contribute to the long-term well-being even of workers who aren’t on their traditional payrolls.” ―Boston Globe

“Raw Deal is a book for its time. Steven Hill perfectly captures the anxiety of the American worker in today’s increasingly digital economy. Hill presents some compelling ideas, the most important being something he calls the Economic Singularity. In this unfortunate tipping point, the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few results in economic implosion because the 99 percent can’t afford to buy anything the 1 percent has to sell. The United States is turning into a nation of 1099 workers who eke out a living driving cars, renting rooms and running errands for people who apparently have better things to do with their time. Throw in self-thinking computers and obedient robots, and there won’t be any work left for plain old Homo sapiens…Hill proposes that we offer 1099 workers a new safety net consisting of tax deductions, individual security accounts and multiemployer health care plans. All good ideas.” ― San Francisco Chronicle

This book is a must read for those concerned about how technology is disrupting the way we work and eroding the social safety net, and how policy makers should respond to ensure that the growing number of workers in the “gig” economy earn adequate benefits.—Laura D’Andrea Tyson, UC-Berkeley and former Chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers

“Steven Hill’s groundbreaking book on the part-time, unstable ‘Uber Economy’ shows how a new sub-economy becomes a work of law-flouting regress undermining full-time work. Remote corporate algorithms run riot!”— Ralph Nader, consumer advocate

For many years, Steven Hill’s analysis, commentary and activism have helped shape our understanding of the U.S. political economy. His latest book, Raw Deal is A riveting expose that shows with alarming lucidity what Americans stand to lose if we don’t figure out how to rein in the technological giants that are threatening the American Dream.–Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation

In Raw Deal, Steven Hill documents in frightening detail the ways in which new forms of work promise to plunge US workers and their families into further economic hardship, risk-assumption, and instability. Fortunately, Hill does not simply anticipate catastrophe; he closes the book with an informed call for institutional reforms that would lessen the negative consequences of these potentially dangerous forms of work. Anyone concerned with US working conditions – whether American workers, worker advocates, labor market scholars, or policy-makers – must read this book .— Janet C. Gornick, Professor of Political Science and Sociology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, Director, LIS: Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg

Praise for Expand Social Security Now

“Read this book before you vote. Few issues are more important to your personal economic future. Steven Hill shows what’s at stake, and he offers solutions that Americans of all stripes can agree on.”—Robert B. Reich, author of “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few”

“Steven Hill has written a barn burner of a book. Or perhaps I should say ‘myth buster,’ because he systematically demolishes the false justifications for slashing Social Security. In place of misplaced animus and misleading arguments, he offers a strong case for dramatically expanding America’s most successful domestic program in an age of rising inequality and widespread financial insecurity.”—Jacob S. Hacker, coauthor of “American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper”, Professor, Yale University

“Steven Hill has written a vigorous defense of Social Security, the country’s most important social program. While most political debate in recent years has focused on ways to cut Social Security or privatize it, Hill goes in the opposite direction and argues for a robust expansion. Hill proposes a Social Security program that would be adequate by itself to support a middle-class retirement.”—Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and author of “Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People”

“Steven Hill has produced a dynamite handbook for angry Americans who seek to take back democracy. The true contest is not Republicans versus Democrats. It is the American people versus Washington. And this is the sleeper issue the people can win. The governing elites in both parties are trying to eviscerate Social Security—arguably the most successful and most popular program created by the federal government. Hill explains why the political insiders and their Wall Street patrons are wrong about Social Security. He shows us how to mobilize to defeat the power elites and expand Social Security rather than destroy it.”—William Greider, author of “Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country”

Praise for Europe’s Promise

Financial Times: “Steven Hill is a lucid and engaging writer. He makes you sit up and think.”

The Economist: “In a new book, Steven Hill extols the European social contract for better government services. Life in Europe is more secure, he argues, and therefore more agreeable.”

Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker: “Like a reverse Alexis de Tocqueville, Steven Hill dauntlessly explores a society largely unknown to his compatriots back home.”

Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign Affairs: “Europe’s Promise is a timely and provocative book . . . the “social capitalist” policies of European countries represent best practices in handling most of the challenges modern democracies face today.”